Can a Pro-Tech Podcast Solve OpenAI’s PR Woes? This winter, OpenAI hit a comms rock bottom. Will its acquisition of the cult favorite show TBPN be enough to turn it around?

While data centers are getting terror threats and public opinion on AI is in the absolute toilet, OpenAI is betting big that this techno-optimist podcast can help turn the narrative around. I talked to the people involved:
www.vanityfair.com/news/story/o...

Exclusive: OpenAI Preps Policy Push to “Rethink the Social Contract” Is OpenAI’s chief futurist prepping for a major breakthrough or just another hype cycle?

Exclusive from VF's @juliablack.bsky.social: OpenAI Preps Policy Push to “Rethink the Social Contract”

<p>A Billion to One <br/> by Julia Black</p> From the mad scientists to the megadonors, a dispatch on the money, power, and influence of technology.

Big day!

You can now SUBSCRIBE to my new weekly @vanityfair.com newsletter, A Billion to One. I'll be covering big money, big tech, and big personalities from my usual insider-outsider perspective. New issues drop Tuesdays... including today. Don't miss out!

www.vanityfair.com/newsletter/b...

Ashley St. Clair Sues Elon Musk’s xAI, Alleging His Company Uses “AI to Undress, Humiliate, and Sexually Exploit Victims” xAI filed its own lawsuit the same day, accusing St. Clair, the mother of one of Musk’s 14 known children, of violating its terms of service.

NEW: Ashley St. Clair has sued Elon Musk's xAI, alleging it uses “AI to undress, humiliate, and sexually exploit victims.” Today Musk and xAI ALSO filed their own suit against St. Clair.

St. Clair's lawyer tells me, “We intend to hold Grok accountable.”

www.vanityfair.com/news/story/a...

Can the Pope spur meaningful action on AI? AI safety advocates are hoping an unlikely ally can provide a rallying cry for guardrails and regulation

There's a growing schism over AI policy between the right's religious conservatives and its tech libertarians. Now all eyes are on the Pope, who is expected to release a landmark document on the topic in the coming weeks. I wrote about it for Transformer! www.transformernews.ai/p/pope-artif...

How Elon Musk and JD Vance plan to 'save civilization' with more babies : Code Switch What do conservatives like JD Vance and tech executives like Elon Musk have in common? They, like other pronatalists, want to “save civilization” by having more American babies. But it wasn’t that lon...

Thanks for having me on, @baparker.bsky.social @npr.org! www.npr.org/2025/10/29/n...

By the way... my current fellowship winds down soon-ish, and I'll be back on the market for a full-time reporting role! If you want to do stories like this together, feel free to reach out (:

email/links in bio

Literally impossible for me to see this man without hearing this song… what an achievement…

youtube.com/shorts/09Nan...

The Tech Right Gets Its Own Phyllis Schlafly

While I was reporting this NYT profile of defense tech investor & JD Vance ally Katherine Boyle, a State Department official told me: “If you’re looking at her project as a policy project, you’re not really understanding it. Her project is ultimately civilizational.”

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/19/b...

The race to make the perfect baby is creating an ethical mess A new field of science claims to be able to predict aesthetic traits, intelligence, and even moral character in embryos. Is this the next step in human evolution or something more dangerous?

This year, two new products launched claiming to be able to detect IQ in embryos(!) In my latest for @technologyreview.com, I dove into the ethical morass—and very real world implications—of ranking humans before they are even born.
ter.li/JuliaB

The Real Stakes, and Real Story, of Peter Thiel’s Antichrist Obsession Thirty years ago, a peace-loving Austrian theologian spoke to Peter Thiel about the apocalyptic theories of Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt. They’ve been a road map for the billionaire ever since.

really jealous of the depth of this reporting by @laurabullard.bsky.social — a must-read! www.wired.com/story/the-re...

A Billion to One | Julia Black | Substack A newsletter about wealth, technology, and power. Click to read A Billion to One, by Julia Black, a Substack publication.

lord help me I started a (free!) substack

got some cool stuff in the pipeline, so please subscribe! (:

open.substack.com/pub/10000000...

How Microschools Became the Latest Tech Mogul Obsession Between homeschool provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill and Trump’s attempts to gut the Department of Education, teaching kids looks different now. Silicon Valley’s answer? Microschools.

I learned so much working on this @juliablack.bsky.social piece on the rise of microschools.

www.wired.com/story/silico...

The student newspaper.
This fell. To the student. Newspaper.

Announcing our sixth class of reporters in residence - Omidyar Network Our new reporters will report on the emerging rules, institutions, norms, people and narratives shaping our technology and society.

Coming out of stealth mode...

to share that I will be joining the @omidyarnetwork.bsky.social's next Reporters in Residence cohort!

This support will enable me to work on some absolute dream projects. I'm so grateful.

more news soon! 👀

omidyar.com/update/omidy...

5 Key Facts About Medicaid and Pregnancy | KFF This brief examines Medicaid’s pregnancy and postpartum coverage and its support for strengthening and improving maternal health outcomes.

Medicaid is the largest single payer of pregnancy-related services, financing 41% of births nationally in 2023and over half of births in four states (Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma): www.kff.org/medicaid/iss...

Contact info in bio (:

really great interview by @ellayurman.bsky.social as well

Reading this article by @juliablack.bsky.social from Aug9 is basically just opening tomorrow's newspaper.

we truly love to see it www.teenvogue.com/story/vivian... @thevivllainous.bsky.social

Julia Black Work by tech and business journalist Julia Black.

Federal employees, I would love to speak with you about how DOGE is using technology to reshape your agencies… spot a new AI use? FedRAMP request? Code rewrite?

Here’s my work: juliablackwrites.com

Secure Signal contact: @mjnblack.09

@altusds.bsky.social @fedworkersunited.bsky.social
#altgov

Sam Altman imagines a grand AI-powered future for humanity, but isn’t too concerned with what it might actually mean for average people.

Up next in our premium interviews from DATA VAMPIRES is @juliablack.bsky.social!

Become a Patreon supporter to listen: www.patreon.com/posts/sam-al...

‘any press is good press, especially on the internet…you have to have a good sense of self.’ — @taylorlorenz.bsky.social, at #onairfest w/ @juliablack.bsky.social, on how she deals w/ being an internet main topic occasionally

Says to expect: Carr to wield FCC power against political enemies; widespread lawfare to tangle cash-poor media companies up in frivolous lawsuits; preemptive self-censorship…

How he’d spend $50m on a media co: “Rebundling” Substack writers into a newsroom of 10-20 voices. Call it a magazine!

@arctictony.bsky.social starting the Future of Media panel off strong by quoting a text from @pkafka.bsky.social: “we’re all fucked lol”

The majority of news influencers are conservative men, study finds The latest Pew Research report on news content creators paints a damning picture of our skewed information ecosystem

The latest Pew Research report on news content creators paints a damning picture of our skewed information ecosystem.

I went deep into the 122 page report and broke down the key findings and what they mean www.usermag.co/p/the-majori...

Been on the fence about how much to bother with Bluesky but @alexrkonrad.bsky.social says this is where the organic conversation is happening so… lets give it a go!

He's played chess with Peter Thiel, sparred with Elon Musk and once, supposedly, stopped a plane crash: Inside Sam Altman's world, where truth is stranger than fiction With the success of ChatGPT, Altman has turned into a household name. And he's just getting started.

I dunno how shameless self-promotion plays on this platform but, uh, I really do want you to read this story, so here’s some anyway:

www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-openai-chatgp...